Category / EN : Brands & Companies

by YannigRoth

Two Growing Crowdsourcing Start-Ups from France: Creads and Studyka

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The French start-up ecosystem is highly active and dynamic, comprising several crowdsourcing businesses (Creads, eYeka, Graphiste, Studyka, Wilogo are some of them). Some crowdsourcing platforms have vanished (Crowdspirit), some have just appeared (99designs.fr), and some have been silently growing since their foundation in the late 2000’s. I met the co-founders of two high-performers of the French crowdsourcing industry: Creads, which calls itself the participatory agency, and Studyka, which organizes challenges targeting students and young professionals. Here’s what they told me (it’s a long post ;-)) Continue reading →

by YannigRoth

Deezbox et Rankseller, deux start-ups qui débutent en France

deezbox-rankseller

Ceci n’est pas un billet sponsorisé mais un coup de pouce à deux entreprises qui viennent de débuter en France. La première est Deezbox, tout juste créée par des amis de l’ESSCA, qui offre la possibilité de commander en ligne des créations graphiques de manière abordable et rapide. La seconde est Rankseller.fr, une plateforme mettant en relation des blogueurs et des annonceurs pour l’échange de billets sponsorisé, qui vient de se lancer en France sous la direction de Maël Roth. J’espère qu’en les présentant ici, je peux modestement contribuer à leur développement. Présentation.

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by YannigRoth

How Brazilian bike manufacturer Caloi refined its brand proposition

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Caloi is a major Brazilian bike manufacturer based in São Paulo, as well a leading brand for over 110 years. Caloi felt they needed to get closer to consumers and to understand what its brand meant to Brazlinian consumers. Together with Brazilian agency CO.R Inovação, they initiated a research project called “Reinventing the two wheels,” designed to understand the role of the bicycle and the Caloi in Brazilian’s lives. Very similarly to the Shimano Coasting initiative conducted by Shimano and IDEO, this project  consisted in meeting consumers of the target  audience in major cities in order to “discover the meaning and the importance a bike has on a biker life.” Explanations from Mariana Loducca Kok, one of the project’s managers at CO.R Inovação. Continue reading →
by YannigRoth

Skoda launches co-creation platform to crowdsource insights in China

skoda co-creation platforms screenshot

Click to get to the platform

As articles on Campaign disappear after a couple of days, being only available to paid subscribers, I thought I would do a blog post about Skoda’s latest co-creation/crowdsourcing initiative in China: the www.congmingzhuyi.com platform. It’s Campaign China that reports about this initiative, orchestrated by Leo Burnett Shanghai, that aims to gather consumer ideas about making driving, both inside and outside of the vehicle, more fun. Continue reading →

by YannigRoth

The Four Crowdsourcing Mergers & Acquisitions of 2012

pacman-illustration

I know some people don’t like calling it an industry, but let’s just use the term to coin the companies that use a crowdsourcing- based business-model. There are a lot of such companies, the first ones have been created in the early 2000’s, and platforms are still appearing today. Even though it seems tough to make money with crowdsourcing today, there is a variety possible strategies to generate revenue: taking a commission on transactions (like 99designs), developing and selling goods (like Quirky), invoicing on a project basis (like Zooppa)… for investors, there’s also the option on an IPO (like Blur Group) or an aquisition by another firm. It turns out that the latter has happened 4 times this year, with established actors purchasing stakes in smaller crowdsourcing firms. Let me describe these three cases, in three parts, and ignite a discussion about what’s next! Continue reading →

by YannigRoth

How Pepsi engaged the Chinese youth with creative crowdsourcing

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The world’s first timeline of crowdsourcing by brands is being constantly updated with past and present cases, and there are now more than 200 crowdsourcing initiatives featured – lots more to come (I just need to find the time…)! In this post, I’d like to present one of the first crowdsourcing examples that has been of strategic importance for a brand in a local market: Pepsi’s Creative Challenges in China. Even before the well-known Pepsi Refresh Project, this series of crowdsourcing initiatives have allowed the brand to get consumers’ attention in the country. Here’s how. Continue reading →

by YannigRoth

Companies increasingly use crowdsourcing strategicaly: Cisco’s I-Prize

crowdsourcing-design-competitions-representation

The visualization of “design competitions” as described by Lampel, Jha & Bhalla (2012)

Actually both brands and companies increasingly use crowdsourcing in their strategies: brands do it often for marketing and communication, companies do in for innovation. The latter has been described in a recently published article: Test-Driving the Future: How Design Competitions Are Changing Innovation, written by three London researchers, and published in Academy of Management Perspectives. It focuses on innovation-related crowdsourcing, like Cisco’s and GE’s challenges. Let me give some information about the former in this post. Continue reading →